Sometimes when you use the dictation feature on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad—or just converse with Siri and it misunderstands you—you might be in for a surprise seeing explicit language that you don’t really want others to see, especially if you talk to Siri on your new Apple TV and kids are present.

Fortunately, both iOS and tvOS give you all the controls you need to prevent profanities from showing up when you use speech-to-text or Siri. In this post, you’ll learn how to disable explicit language for Siri and Dictation on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and filter out explicit language for Siri on your Apple TV.

Adjusting explicit language for Siri and Dictation requires diving into Restrictions settings, also known as parental controls, which lets parents block or limit certain features and services on iOS devices.

How to disable explicit language for Siri and Dictation on iPhone and iPad

Step 1: Tap Settings → General → Restrictions.

Step 2: If Restrictions are disabled, tap Enable Restrictions and create a passcode to access and change your settings or to turn off Restrictions.

Step 3: Under the Allowed Content heading, tap Siri.

Step 4: Flip the Explicit Language switch to the OFF position to disallow mature language for Siri and Dictation features.

Now when you use Siri, or tap the microphone on the iOS keyboard, foul language will be filtered out with asterisks.

As you can see for yourself on the screenshot below, interacting with Siri will now filter out any profanities or otherwise explicit language. Go ahead, try this out yourself: after disabling explicit Siri language, hold the Siri button on your Siri Remote, speak a sentence with an F-word and watch what happens.

If you don’t want to filter out foul language for Siri interactions, select Show in the Siri Explicit Language section.